U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, nominated to the bench by former President Donald J. Trump in 2017, is granting Texas an injunction against Joe Biden government regulations that would grant anti-discrimination protections to “gender identity.” In his ruling, Judge Kacsmaryk wrote that the rule likely violates protections already on the books for biological women. Under the new rules, biological males would be allowed to access facilities designated only for use by biological females.
The Biden government regulations, which expand protected classes under Title IX to include “sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” will come into effect on August 1. However, a number of state governments are successfully convincing federal judges to grant injunctions against the measure. Texas is the 15th state to block the rule from taking effect pending legal challenges.
Judge Kacsmaryk noted that the rule directly undermines the purpose of Title IX, which was to enact nondiscrimination protections for women. “The Final Rule inverts the text, history, and tradition of Title IX: the statute protects women in spaces historically reserved to men; the Final Rule inserts men into spaces reserved to women,” he wrote, adding: “The Final Rule reads sexual orientation and gender identity into Title IX’s antidiscrimination principle in violation of that statute.”
Additionally, the Trump-appointed judge noted that Biden government measure was also in contravention of Texas state law, which “protects sex separation in K–12 and higher education athletic programs.”
